


Alley Cat

by Sauou



Category: Banana Bus Squad
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Gen, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, M/M, cartoonz is a cat, delirious is a little boy, tbh i forgot to write a scene but its still good, what else do i tag..?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-08
Updated: 2017-05-08
Packaged: 2018-10-29 12:03:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10853619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sauou/pseuds/Sauou
Summary: Cartoonz is this mangled old alley cat with a missing ear and scars all over the place. He looks mean as hell and hisses at everyone. Delirious is a little boy with a blue rain jacket and a missing tooth who nobody much pays attention to.Delirious finds Cartoonz in the trash behind a shop, and though he gets hissed at and swatted at, he picks up the big mean alley cat and loves him. Delirious’ mom freaks out and tries to take him to the pet shop to get him a nice, friendly animal, but he won’t give up ol'Cartoonz.Then they get up to all kinds of high jinks and everywhere you see Delirious, this old gnarly cat is right behind him. (Every time you see the alley cat, a disheveled Delirious is ambling along after, up to no good.)





	Alley Cat

He walks along the edge of the sidewalk, balancing over the edge with his short wobbly legs that keep trying to twist out underneath him, his arms spread wide for balance.

His brand new blue rain boots are just a bit too big and want to slip off his feet. He stumbles as he hops off the curb and jumps into a small puddle, nearly slipping as he lands in the water.

“Delirious!” His mother calls from behind him. “Don’t go getting dirty now! You’re going to get mud all over your clothes!” Her voice is exasperated and just a little desperate as she tugs her coat over her head and dodges under the torrents of rain streaming off the shop’s roof.

The shopkeeper behind her closes the cash register and trades one soft, knowing look, to her back as the door bounces shut.

Delirious pretends not to hear her and keeps jumping from puddle to puddle, giggling softly to himself and staining the edges of his pants with the grit from the street as the water soaks right on through.

“Oh for,” she mutters and runs through the rain after him.

.

Cartoonz usually tries to sleep through the rain, curled up in the topmost branches of the last tree to survive the onslaught of the city’s street cleaning crew. His tail tucked under his nose and his eyes fiercely shut tight, fur instinctively bristling as the rain peppers it.

What remains of his right ear twitches as his half-asleep brain registers the yells of a small child beneath him. He briefly entertains the notion of dive-bombing the noisy kid’s head, but the thought of landing in a puddle and getting soaked keeps him still.

A low growl rumbles from beneath his throat still, so far down it could almost resemble a purr. Wordless swears at the world as he falls back into his half-sleep state.

.

Cartoonz watched him go, that little boy in blue with the too-big rain boots and messy unkempt hair. Even though he desperately wanted to come down from his perch in the branches of the tree, his tail twitched and his ears flattened as he heard the mother say,

“Leave him alone, he’s just an old alley cat.”  
.

He is hungry, again.

His tail swishes as he sits in the topmost branches of tree that overlooks the Dime and Decker Shoe Store, watching everything below and hiding from the infuriating rain that peppers his fur and makes him hiss.

He grumbles so low under his breath it could almost be mistaken for a purr, but Cartoonz is always growling at one thing or another.

He clenches his claws deep into the bark and hunches down low, mangled ear twitching as he listens to the humans below.

The woman is tall and large and far too noisy for his tastes, but the little boy in blue is interesting.

.

Wednesdays always see his mom dragging him along to the post office, as much Delirious absolutely hates waiting inside the cold and boring room with all the cold and boring people. But no matter how much he begs and cries she refuses to leave him at home alone.

(He kicks the row of mailboxes in the lobby their until his mother comes running and holds his hands telling him, “No” gently shaking her head. He wants to go back home so much his dad is sleeping on the couch so why can’t he?)

It’s stopped raining by now, but the sky is still grey and the air so thick that Delirious throws his coat behind him as he runs out the door, dancing around and through the queue of people waiting in line much to his mother’s protest.

“At least stay in sight!” She calls hopeless after him as she picks up the coat. The teller signals for another person to head on up and the crowd (and her) shifts that one step further away from the door.

“He takes after his father so much, I don’t know what to do with him,” she says mournfully, touching at a dark spot on her wrist.

.

His stomach guides him as he slips between the shadows and dodging the lingering droplets of rain that fall from the rooftops and running free.

The world is bright and large in the aftermath of the storm, everywhere he looks things are highlighted by the reflections still running down the street and sidewalks. Over the windowpanes and streetlamps.

Something dark and furry darts into the alleyway across the street, and mindless of possible traffic Delirious runs after it.

Arms splayed wide to balance himself as he dances through puddles. Laughing all the while.

.

He is digging into the bottom of a black plastic trash bag left at the back door of the shop, claws ripping easily through the material and rooting deep into it for the good stuff, when he hears a noise behind him and jumps. He can clear several feet no problem, but his claws snag and he falls back into the garbage bewildered and confused.

Still pissed off, growling so low at the threat, his mouth moves but Cartoonz’s display is dismissed by the little boy in blue who just sits on his ankles and watches him, wide-eyed and fascinated.

Cartoonz screams and tries to swat at the boy, but his front legs get tangled up in the plastic and they twist underneath him until he falls on his face, ass in the air and tail waving frantically.

He hisses again, and again, but the little boy with the blue rainboots just watches him, the beginnings of a smile lighting up the child’s face.

When the boy smiles he can see one of his front teeth are missing, there’s just a hole and the tiniest of marks on his lip where the tooth fought it’s way out.

Cartoonz gets tired of struggling, and gives up, laying completely still and whining his distress at everything to anyone who can hear him, like a kitten calling for his mother.

As soon as his belly settles in, and his cries start registering, the little boy sits up and reaches one careful hand outwards toward him.

He wants to bite, to swat at him, but his feet are tangled and he’s tired and the first beginnings of rain have already begun to register across his back and tail and he’s just had enough of all of this.

Cartoonz lays his head down, and watches.

.

She is distressed when she walks out of the post office and sees her son holding onto the tail that wraps around his neck. A big old alley cat, one of its ears torn almost clean off and scars all over its body is sitting on her little boy’s shoulders, curled around his neck like he is a tree to be climbed.

“Oh no,” she mutters, half under her breath. “Not a cat..”

But the rain is starting to fall again, slipping between the branches and sliding down the leaves of the big oak standinove her.

They’re all going to get soaked standing here like this and the last thing she needed was a wet cat and a sick child and..

“Is he purring or growling,” she asks her little boy as she takes his little hand and tries to lead him back inside the post office where it is warm and dry.

“I don’t know,” Delirious replies with a small giggle. “But it tickles.” The cat pressed right against his cheek and rumbling with such a gravely voice there must be rocks in his throat.

.

The cat was funny.

Half an ear gone like no cat Delirious had ever seen before, and with a deep scar over one eye. But such a pretty red and black coat of fur all he wanted to do since he saw it was hold it and pet it.

But it was dancing in the garbage and his mother told him to never play in the trash outside their house, so he just sat and watched until the cat lay down.

For a long time Delirious sat and watched, twitching his toes just barely managing to keep still it took everything he had.

With half of it’s ear missing and such pretty red and black fur, it made a lot of funny noises and was doing a strange dance for the longest time in the bags of garbage.

He knew his momma always told him not to play in the trash but this kitty was already here, so that meant it was okay yeah?

.

His momma didn’t look too happy, but that was okay she usually was worried about one thing or another. And he had his cat now so..

Jonathan craddled the big tom cat in his arms despite the cat’s protests.

“Honey, he probably has a home to get to, we should let him go,” his mother urges softly, but the cat is warm and soft and he never wants to let go.

“I’m gonna name him,” he chirps up at her.

They’re nearly up to the front step, just a few more feet to go, she’s been trying to get him to leave the cat behind the whole walk home but nothing’s working.

“What if he already has a name and a family, you wanna keep him from that,” she tries, desperate.

Jonathan stops, on the front stoop, and looks down at the red beast with scuffed and torn up fur, scratches and half an ear.

“They’re obviously not taking care of Cartoonz, he’s my friend now,” Jonathan nods to himself, then looks up to his mother for approval, smiling.

“Honey..”

The front door opens, and there is his father.

.

As unruly as ever, blinking against the sunset as if he’d just woken up, and looking the same as he always does.

Dirty. Surly.

He looks down at Jonathan. And the cat.

His lip curls slowly, and his hand clenches.

“You.. you bring that _thing_ in _my house_!” Arm raised, his fist is moving and there is a lot of weight behind it.

His mother blocks Jonathan’s view.

She steps in front of him, and catches the arm with her own. But can’t stop it.

She slides across the stoop, and knocks into Jonathan, accidentally shoves him over from her momentum.

She is trying not to fall when the man grabs her hair. He pulls her upright, knots a fist in her hair and twists her head.

Makes her look at him.

“My house–!”

Her scalp is burning, but she shoves. She pushes back against him and this sudden fight, this unusual refusal has him on edge and he slips over the threshold to the house.

He is shoved back inside.

But pulling her along with him, hands knotted in her hair, her shoulder slams into the doorway as she tumbles and she turns one last time to look behind her.

And sees her son still sitting there on the steps, looking so lost and scared, the big angry cat rumbling in his lap.

She kicks the door shut behind her.

.

The noises make him want to cry, they make him cry. So he covers his ears and hunches into himself, holding the squirming cat and muttering to himself a song he can only half remember the words to.

Cartoonz is loathe to go, though the boy is squishing his sides too hard and making his ribs hurt and it hard to breathe.

But the crashes and yells inside the house has his hair standing on end and he’s bristling inside and out, ready for a fight, unable to keep still.

He twists and slips out of the little boy’s arms as if he was made of water and not flesh and bone, then slinks along the side of the house until he finds the open window, cracked open just those needed few inches.

Fur on end, and teeth bared, he enters the house.

.

Delirious is alone when the crack breaks into the air, so sudden and loud and sharp that though he’s covering his ears he can still hear it and it makes his head hurt. There is something dark behind that noise, and the silence that follows it is eerie and undos what little nerves he has.

“Cartoonz,” he whimpers to himself, curled up in a ball. Too little and too young to know better of what happened.

He already misses the cat, wishes it were back here where he could hold it and press his nose into its soft, pretty red fur.

.

Cartoonz does come back, eventually. With a slight limp on one side like he was thrown against a wall, and blood where there shouldn’t be blood.

But he comes back. And slips between Jonathan’s arms like he had never even left.

Purring with such a deep rumble that the boy’s whole body vibrates from the force of it.

.

“Oh my,” the old woman says when she sees them step into the bank. “Are you sure its a good idea to let that stray sit on your son’s head like that?”

Not so much asking as declaring it to all who could listen of the scraggly tom cat with scars and a missing ear who sits on the little boy’s shoulders like a bird on a perch.

Wanting to say more, to warn away..

But the mother speaks, shakes her head with a soft smile.

“They get along so well.”

As Jonathan runs out the door, chasing butterflies.

Cartoonz right there beside him.


End file.
